While Ratushny said he sympathizes with the officers who responded to the events in Portapique, police often have to investigate traumatic incidents like sexual assaults and the murder of children, and then testify before a jury.

"In this particular situation, I believe that it is equally important that they do the same — not to a jury in a criminal case, but to the public in this horrible, terrible thing that has happened to this part of our country," said Ratushny, who has also worked with inquiries as legal counsel and is the author of The Conduct of Public Inquiries: Law, Policy, and Practice.

"This is all about what the police officers were doing that particular night; it's a very important aspect of this. And I believe the public should see them and hear them."

     A memorial at a Nova Scotia church grew in the months after the mass killing that began in Portapique, N.S. (Robert Short/CBC)

Ratushny pointed to comments by Peter Cory, a former Supreme Court of Canada justice, regarding the Westray tragedy.

Governments and policing organizations like the RCMP prefer to have their business confidential, Ratushny said, which is often necessary. But, he said the whole point of a public inquiry is to restore faith in the institutions that have failed in some way.

Nijhawan had also proposed entering an expert report from a psychologist on what requiring live testimony might mean for RCMP officers. 

However, commissioner Michael MacDonald said Thursday that the report would not be necessary for their decision.

The inquiry does not sit on Fridays. The commission will reconvene Monday when lawyers will continue arguments on why certain RCMP officers should be allowed to testify.

Nasha Nijhawan, a lawyer with the National Police Federation, told the Mass Casualty Commission there's a real risk the 18 officers being asked to testify by lawyers for the victims' families could be re-traumatized by testifying.

"Of course it would be best if everybody could explain in their own first-person voice what they experienced, but at what cost?" Nijhawan said Wednesday.

A lawyer for the commission said last week that senior RCMP officers will be called as witnesses, but Emily Hill did not confirm specific names. The inquiry has not released a witness list for the weeks ahead.

Lee Bergerman, who was the commanding officer of the Nova Scotia RCMP in April 2020, has since retired and the commission previously said that would not impact her ability to testify. 

Debate over expert's qualifications

The federation represents regular and reservist RCMP members below the rank of inspector. 

Nijhawan said the union planned to enter two pieces of evidence to support its argument.

On Thursday morning the commission heard about the qualifications of Nick Carlton, a professor at the University of Regina and a registered doctoral clinical psychologist in Saskatchewan. He is also the scientific director of the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment. 

The union hoped to introduce one of his reports as evidence. Lawyers for the families would have the opportunity to ask him questions about his work and research.

Nasha Nijhawan is a lawyer representing the National Police Federation. (CBC)

Nijhawan said Carlton's report provides necessary information about the potential impact of the original events on the RCMP officers, how they may be dealing with the fallout of that trauma, and what requiring live testimony might mean for them.

But after hearing the submissions, Chief Commission Michael MacDonald said Carlton's research was not needed to determine whether individual officers should be called.  

The Mass Casualty Commission presented documents this week summarizing what it believes happened in Portapique. They state Gabriel Wortman attacked his longtime partner and proceeded to kill 13 neighbours after she escaped and hid in the woods. 

The gunman killed nine more people while disguised as a Mountie the following morning and drove nearly 200 kilometres through rural Nova Scotia, most of it in a decommissioned police cruiser he'd adapted to look like a real one. 

Officers interviewed by RCMP, commission

The inquiry already has access to a great deal of evidence from the officers who responded, Nijhawan said, including 911 calls, radio logs, and interviews with police and commission investigators.

The union is very aware its members want to serve the inquiry as much as they can, Nijhawan said.

"In fact, they wish so much to be helpful that they may be willing to extend themselves beyond what is appropriate for their own wellness," she said.

"It would be our submission that you should not ask them to do too much."

The union is also looking to table results from an internal union survey of the members who have been engaged in the commission interview process over the past several months. 

Nijhawan said this report will show the "actual impact" of Portapique on the RCMP members who responded, and make clear the "potential re-traumatization" of officers by going through the inquiry's process.

On Thursday, lawyers representing families began giving submissions on why individual officers should be called, specifically Const. Stuart Beselt and Const. Vicki Colford.

Beselt was the first officer on scene and spoke to a gunshot victim shortly after he pulled into Portapique. Colford spoke to the man's wife about a back exit from the community. 

The commission said they had no plans to call Beselt and Colford as witnesses to clarify any gaps in evidence in the portion of the inquiry devoted to determining what happened, but had planned to include them later in a witness circle about policing. 

Tara Miller, who represents relatives of victims Aaron Tuck and Kristen Beaton, said sworn evidence and being able to test it is the "core foundation of our legal system," and that includes hearing from first responders under oath.

"How does one have an inquiry with a mandate to inquire into what happened and make findings of fact on the responses of the RCMP officers, without hearing from a single officer?" she said. 

Joshua Bryson, counsel for the family of victims Joy and Peter Bond, had a similar take on Wednesday. He said police have a very difficult job, but part of that job requires testifying about violent crimes in court. 

"In our view, it acts as a bar for this commission to fulfil its mandate, which is to understand what happened," Bryson said.

Banning officers would see public lose faith: lawyer

Rob Pineo of Patterson Law, whose firm represents most of the other families, said the ability to call RCMP officers should be taken on an individual basis. 

The commission can consider their medical records and evidence before deciding on the best way to support them in testifying, Pineo said, arguing that an overall ban is not in the public interest.

"I'm not sure that there would be a lot of faith in the ultimate findings and recommendations of this commission if a blanket expert report was used to block critical evidence," Pineo said.

On Wednesday, lawyers representing the victims' families also argued that Lisa Banfield, the gunman's spouse, must be a witness in the inquiry. The commission has based its preliminary findings on lengthy interviews Banfield gave to the RCMP.

Many concerns about ambush

The three Mounties that first entered the community were not the only ones on guard for an ambush. At the intersection of Portapique Beach Road and Highway 2, Const. Vicki Colford and Cpl. Natasha Jamieson, the fourth and sixth officers on scene, were trying to provide each other with cover — Colford with a shotgun and Jamieson with her service pistol — as they waited at the entrance and checked cars leaving the community.

Colford, who RCMP interviewed on April 23, 2020, said she was on edge hearing sounds from the nearby woods and felt like they were an easy target. 

RCMP officers were stationed at the intersection of Highway 2 and Portapique Beach Road on April 18, 2020 and in the days that followed. (Jonathan Villeneuve/Radio-Canada)

At one point, Cpl. Dion Sutton, a police dog handler, arrived and retreated to the woods to provide the pair with cover. Unlike the female officers, he had night vision goggles, something Colford said would have been helpful. 

Neither Jamieson or Colford were trained to use a carbine rifle, another recommendation that came in the wake of the Moncton shootings. Jamieson later said in an interview with the commission that was no fault of the RCMP as she'd had to postpone training due to a surgery. Colford has since retired.  

Hoped gunman was dead

Many of the officers who arrived on scene Saturday evening were relieved of their duties early Sunday morning. 

After the four children in McCully's house were driven to safety, the first three officers on scene stayed in the house and were eventually picked up by the Emergency Response Team in its tactical vehicle.

When Patton spoke to RCMP a few days later, he said he debriefed at the makeshift command post at the Great Village Fire Hall and drove home with Beselt. They talked about how the gunman was likely dead in the woods. 

It was only when he woke up and called a colleague that he realized how wrong that assumption was. The shooter killed nine more people on Sunday morning, most of them strangers. 

A policing expert says the stark reality of understaffed police forces in rural communities, combined with the "frenetic and unprecedented" first hours of the Portapique killings, were major contributing factors in the reactions of the first officers on the ground.

Michael Arntfield, a professor and criminologist at Western University, weighed in on police movements and response for the night of April 18 and the early hours of April 19, as outlined in a document released by the Mass Casualty Commission on Monday.

The document examines the April 2020 rampage by a man disguised as a Mountie that left 22 people dead, injured others and traumatized many more people in rural Nova Scotia.

The document includes statements and descriptions of conversations between various witnesses and 911 dispatchers and police. It also contains excerpts from 911 transcripts of calls from four children who reported gunshots, saw the shooter driving outside and heard footsteps in the house during a harrowing two hours when they hid and relayed information to dispatchers about the man who killed their parents.

Criminologist Michael Arntfield says the handful of officers on the ground in the first hours of the Portapique killings had to make their own decisions in many situations, including what was best for children hiding in a home. (CBC)

Arntfield said while there likely will be plenty of "quarterbacking" from the public around how four children were left in a house for two hours, a decision had to be made on the fly.

"I think this really underscores just how frenetic and unprecedented this situation was," Arntfield said Monday.

Tyler Blair, the older brother of two of the children, has questioned why it took so long to get the kids to safety. Arntfield agreed that questions will rightfully arise about what other safeguards should have been put in place.

The three RCMP officers who entered the subdivision on foot did check on them three times — urging them to stay in the basement and only open the door to someone with the safeword "pineapple."

While this "loose" surveillance of the children was not perfect, Arntfield said it might have been all that was possible with only three officers in the area.

"Are you going to walk the children with an active shooter through the woods to a car?" Arntfield said.

"I mean, it's not an ideal situation, but they're comparatively safe where they are."

The document describes how RCMP Const. Chris Grund arrived later and struggled waiting for the go-ahead to help the children. His decision to eventually walk in, rather than taking a cruiser, was partially motivated by his recollection of how RCMP vehicles had been targets in the 2014 Moncton shootings.

Arntfield said it's clear that all RCMP officers on the ground that night would have been very familiar with the Moncton shootings in which three officers were killed and two wounded in ambush situations.

That would have factored into their tactical decisions to stay concealed and not drive a vehicle where they could be picked off. Arntfield said there may not be an operational plan to do so, but these are decisions made at the discretion of each officer.

More officers requested

Over those two hours, the officers also kept getting called away as more fires and explosions were reported and they were asked to clear other scenes.

Grund asked the risk manager working at the RCMP operational communications centre twice if another team should go in to help out, given that several officers arrived and were stationed at the entrance to the small community. But Sgt. Andy O'Brien said he was worried about sending in a second team if there was a possibility they'd be caught in crossfire. 

Arntfield said the personnel challenges of the early hours — having only three officers on the scene — highlight the difference between policing in cities and rural parts of the country, to which "your average citizen is completely oblivious."

No matter the province or territory, Arntfield said there is just no police infrastructure comparable to major cities. In rural areas, they have to essentially "poach" officers from one county or unit to another, just to maintain adequacy standards. 

Commission not here to 'point fingers'

In a press conference with reporters Monday afternoon, the commission team members said they're aware emerging details will bring up more questions for the public and victims' families about what happened.

"The commission's role is not to lay blame or to point fingers, but to look at what are the facts and what can we learn from them, and what recommendations can we make to keep people safer in the future," said senior commission counsel Emily Hill.

This is only the "very beginning" of that process, Hill said, so the work this week is about building a common foundation of facts. Then, other conversations can be had about why and how decisions were made, and what can be learned.

Risk managers act as 'ad hoc' incident commanders: expert

The inquiry heard more about the role of risk manager through a presentation Tuesday by technical witness Darryl Macdonald.

Macdonald works with the Operational Communications Centre commander in P.E.I., and is familiar with the centre in Truro where dispatchers handled calls for Portapique and co-ordinated with the RCMP, fire and Emergency Health Services.

Risk managers are police officers at the staff-sergeant level working in the Truro centre but in a separate room from dispatchers, Macdonald said. They provide help to officers on the road and are trained to be an "ad hoc incident commander" for any significant incident that's underway until one can be sent to the scene. 

If there's a resource that's needed, such as a dog handler or backup from another unit, the risk manager co-ordinates with the dispatcher to authorize that, he said. 

At the end of the first day, Barbara McLean, the inquiry's investigations director, said the commission was aware of Houston's comments.

"Frankly, we are surprised and disappointed. The Mass Casualty Commission is an independent inquiry and must remain free from interference, or external direction," McLean said, adding she hopes Houston will keep an open mind when it comes to any recommendations in the final report for how the province can improve public safety.

McLean said the commission needs to "remain free" of the two levels of governments that established it as well as institutions and people, including the 61 participants in the inquiry "who have divergent views on [its] work."

In his opening remarks, chief commissioner Michael MacDonald also addressed concerns about the perceived lack of transparency.

"Some people are concerned about the commission's independence, believing we may be susceptible to covering up for either the RCMP or government. Let me assure you, nothing could be further from the truth," MacDonald said.

He added that "independence is the backbone, the be-all-and-end-all, of inquiries."

Inquiry 'can't drag on'

MacDonald said the process the commission has developed to organize the roughly 40,000 pages of records, as well as information from more than 150 interviews, into documents will save time and money. 

The alternative, he said, would be to spend years working through testimony and cross-examination of hundreds of witnesses. 

"This approach will provide the public with as much information as we can at the earliest opportunity," he said. "We developed a process that is just as, if not more, effective than calling witness after witness — [it's] a process that will not drag on and on.

"That will result in a lot less trauma." 

Michael MacDonald, the chief commissioner of the Mass Casualty Commission, speaks on Tuesday at the opening day of public hearings in Halifax. (Brett Ruskin/CBC)

But he said the approach will still be thorough and that commission will "be robust in its response if witnesses try to be misleading." He also said lawyers for participants will be able to cross-examine witnesses, something counsel for some of the families had asked for in the lead up to hearings. 

The former Nova Scotia chief justice said the commissioners have a responsibility to get to the truth without causing more pain. 

"Too often, I have seen the emotional toll of processes that can go on and on, lives waiting in the balance," he said. "This process cannot drag on for five years."

The long-awaited public phase of the inquiry into the mass shootings of April 2020 that left 22 dead in Nova Scotia is beginning in Halifax on Tuesday morning, but the proceedings will be a far cry from a trial.

The goal of the joint federal and provincial inquiry is to make communities safer. Its mandate extends beyond looking at the 13 hours that a gunman disguised as a Mountie travelled freely through rural parts of the province, killing neighbours in Portapique and acquaintances and strangers in Wentworth, Debert and Shubenacadie. 

Only a handful of people survived encounters with 51-year-old denturist Gabriel Wortman who torched homes, used guns he obtained illegally, and who police later described as paranoid and fixated on the end of the world. 

The Mass Casualty Commission is responsible for examining how policing and government agencies responded to the tragedy, the role intimate partner violence played, the shooter's access to firearms and any other past dealings he had with police.

Charlene Bagley's father, Tom Bagley was a retired firefighter and navy veteran. He was killed when he stopped by his neighbours' home in Wentworth to check on them. The gunman was a stranger.

"The fact that my father was taken really does challenge the grieving process…. I can't fully heal until I know," she said. "I want answers."  

Charlene Bagley walks at a march in downtown Halifax on July 29, 2020, in connection with the announcement of a public inquiry into the mass killing. Her father, Tom Bagley, was one of the 22 victims. (Shaina Luck/CBC)

When Tom Bagley left home for his usual morning walk on April 19, 2020, police had not yet publicly identified their suspect. It would be another hour before they shared on Twitter that he was in a mock cruiser. 

"I want to know why an [emergency] alert wasn't called. Mainly because I know for certain that would have saved his life," said Charlene Bagley, who lives in the Halifax area. 

Bagley is among a number of people directly impacted who say they've lost faith in the inquiry process they demanded and doubt it will actually bring answers to questions that have haunted them since April 2020.  

She wrote a letter to the commission last week in which she said she wanted to hear testimony under oath from the officers who fired at the Onslow fire hall as well as the gunman's partner, Lisa Banfield. 

"She knew him more than anybody. She lived with him," Bagley said in an interview, adding she's also skeptical of the accounts presented by the RCMP. 

Banfield's lawyer said he was unable to comment on his client's involvement in the commission until after her trial that starts in late March. Banfield has pleaded not guilty to giving the gunman the ammunition he used in the shootings, although police say she didn't know his plans. 

Hearings not all witnesses 

This week's proceedings at the Halifax Convention Centre will be livestreamed and won't involve the introduction of any new evidence until next Monday. On Tuesday, the commissioners are scheduled to give opening remarks and there will be a panel on mental health and wellness. 

The inquiry has cost $13 million so far and until this point, its work has happened behind the scenes. A team of investigators has been combing through tens of thousands of pages of documents — including notes and files subpoenaed from the RCMP — as well as conducting their own interviews with front-line officers and other first responders.

But it's uncertain how many of them will be called upon to testify. 

Emily Hill, senior counsel for the Mass Casualty Commission, said some days the hearings won't have any witnesses. Instead, lawyers for the commission will be presenting summaries of their investigation, compiled in "foundational documents" that will be posted publicly as they're introduced. 

Next week the plan is to start with documents outlining what happened in Portapique. 

WATCH | Hearings begin into Nova Scotia mass shooting: